Tag Archives: history

Barcelona, Catalonia Incoming

Heart of Catalonia: wine, food and medieval monasteries

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Just 30 minutes driving from Barcelona, the Bages is an inland region full of history, landmarks like Montserrat and an old tradition of excellent food and wine. We decided to discover a small piece of this land visiting Artium cellar and Món Sant Benet monastery. It was a gastronomic, cultural and historical journey to the heart of Catalonia. In this post we explain all what we learnt, what we ate and what we drank in this one day trip from the well known capital of Catalonia. As always, we try to recommend unknown but valuable sites and experiences out of Barcelona. Hope this post is useful for your next trip to this mediterranean country.

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Artium Caves: underground

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Asia, China

Jewels of Datong

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knock, knock, knock.

It was 5:30am. The employee of China Railway company knocked the door and woke us up. We shared the small room with another couple from Barcelona. We hardly slept 5 hours and were tired after four full days discovering the capital of China, Beijing. We put on our clothes, went to the bathroom and closed the luggage. The train arrived to its destination, Datong.

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Inside Datong Caves

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Europe, Spain

Peníscola, white and blue

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Peníscola is a medieval town built on a rock hill between two beaches in the north of Castelló province in Spain. Birthplace of a pope and shooting location for Game of Thrones, Peníscola mixes a medieval castle with white painted houses and the Mediterranean sea as background landscape.

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The lighthouse and a sailboat seen from the castle

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Asia, Japan

Back to the past in Himeji

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We don’t know anyone that has been to Japan and doesn’t want to go back at some point. Japan is an amazing country and, although we are happy about the trip that we did in 2015, we know that someday we will return to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Tokyo, Kyoto and Miyajima are in the beaten track, but there are some other destinations that surely deserve a visit. An example of this is the city of Himeji, which has one of the most beautiful castles we’ve ever seen. Of course we love European medieval castles, but the Himeji Castle was something totally new for us. We felt as a Samurai when we saw it.

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One of our first pictures of the Himeji Castle

Himeji can be easily reached from Osaka in less than one hour by train, so why don’t you keep reading and add Himeji to your bucket list? 🙂

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Europe, Italy

Torcello, a big surprise near Venice

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When planning our winter trip to Venice, we imagined ourselves in Piazza San Marco or walking through its channels. We also planned to visit the home of glass, Murano, and the Instagram-friendly town of Burano. But it was not until we read in depth our travel guide that we discovered an island that we couldn’t miss: Torcello. Its history and its loneliness create a magic environment that we will try to share with you in this post.

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Our first steps in Torcello

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